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“[There] is a natural or unexpected form of bondage where girls step into cement, wander into spider webs or sink into quicksand. Often girls find themselves in perilous or humiliating situations like being in danger of sinking under quicksand or unable to stop the advances of a horny teenager after having stepped into superglue” (Weird and Sexy website).

I used the opening quote in a previous blog on ‘stuck fetishism’ but is just as appropriate in the context of this article on quicksand fetishes. Such fetishes appear to be a sub-type of taphephilia (that I also examined in a previous blog on claustrophilia [sexual arousal from being in confined spaces]). Dr. Anil Aggrawal in his book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices defines taphephilia as deriving sexual pleasure and arousal from being buried alive. I noted in my previous blog that when I first read about this paraphilia I had major doubts about it’s existence until I came across groups such as the Six Feet Under Club and the Buried Stories website. As the Buried Storieshomepage asserts:

“Buried or burial whilst still alive is a nightmare to some but a joy or fetish to others. The desire to be boxed, bagged and buried is a great turn on for many. The feeling of utter helplessness as the sounds of the first shovel of dirt hits the top of their coffin. The fantasy may also involve being placed in a casket, bodybag, or other enclosure before being buried either on the beach, in dirt or even in quicksand. Encased or entombed, enclosed or just bagged. ‘Buried Stories’ contains stories of people being buried, sunk in quicksand or encased within an enclosure. Some may have acted out their desires whilst others have written about their fantasy to share with you”

An article about ‘stuck fetishism’ (on the now defunct Nation Master website) provided a typology of all the different types of stuck fetishes. There was no empirical evidence supporting the typology but has good face validity based on what I have read about the topic. The different type of stuck fetishism includes (i) sticky substance immobilization fetishes, (ii) non-sticky substance immobilization fetishes, (iii) situational immobilization fetishes, (iv) perceived situational immobilization fetish, (v) stuck clothing fetish, (vi) stuck transport fetish, (vii) stuck transformation fetish, (viii) stuck multi-person fetish, and (ix) stuck conjoinment fetish (for a detailed description of each of these fetishes, see my previous blog on stuck fetishism). These fetishes – while specific – may not be mutually exclusive, and some stuck fetishists may gain sexual arousal from more than one of these scenario. Quicksand fetishes are an example of ‘non-sticky substance immobilization fetishes’ (i.e., the individual is rendered immobile and derives sexual arousal from a substance that is not sticky but stops the individual from being able to move such as quicksand, mud or cement).

In an article on the Cracked.com website, ‘Girls stuck in quicksand’ was one of the six most bizarre safe for work fetishes they listed. The article noted:

“There’s no official name for this weird fetish – yet – but that doesn’t mean the Internet isn’t full of videos and photos depicting it. For some people, the idea of a person, especially a woman, nearly drowning in quicksand is quite the turn on. Perhaps these viewers imagine themselves as a hero who can swoop in and save the day. Or maybe these people are aroused by the woman’s fear. Either way, this is a fetish we hope you won’t experience any time soon. This is a perfect example of a nearly ‘safe for work’ fetish – it requires no nudity or sex, and it in fact involves a situation in which sex would be utterly impossible. It’s people who get aroused at the sight of fully clothed women sinking in quicksand”.

“A cursory search online would reveal tons of sites dedicated to compiling clips from various sources of girls drowning in quicksand, and then there are the niche video sites dedicated to providing original content (there probably is a booming industry in quicksand pit installation these days). On those sites, elaborate storylines are created to justify how these lovely ladies came to be trapped in the unforgiving, bottomless pit of certain-yet-sexy death. So … maybe the quicksand thing triggers some ‘damsel in distress’ response in the [brain’s cortex]? If there’s anything lonely Internet tough guys love, it’s sitting behind their keyboards visualizing all the many ways they would totally jump in and save the unfortunate lady fake drowning in a boggy marsh”.

Reference was made in the paragraph above to a “damsel in distress response”. In a previous blog I examined ‘damsel in distress’ (DiD) fetishes. I noted in thatblog that (like quicksand fetishes) it is mostly males who have DiD fetishes and that they can be very specific including (but not restricted to) such things as (i) ‘kidnap and rescue’ fetishes (sexual pleasure from watching or engaging in women being kidnapped and/or rescued from potentially life-threatening scenarios where they are cuffed, bound and/or controlled by another person or persons), (ii) tickle bondage fetishes (sexual pleasure from watching or tickling women while they are tied up), (iii) quicksand fetishes (sexual pleasure from watching women sink in quicksand), and (iv) ‘pedal pumping’ and ‘cranking’ fetishes (sexual pleasure from watching women stranded in their cars with repeated pressing of the gas pedal and revving up – which also has elements of foot fetishism – while turning the key in an attempt to get the engine to start).

Unsurprisingly, there are no academic papers on quicksand fetishes and very few articles of any description on the topic. One article by Jagger Gravning on the Motherboard news site wrote an interesting article on ‘The fetish for video game characters trapped in quicksand’ (and could arguably be classed as a sub-type of quicksand fetishism). This could also be classed as a type of toonophilia (sexual arousal from cartoon characters) that I also examined in a previous blog.

Gravning’s article concentrated on the ‘quicksand artists’ (and other types of fetish illustrations on the Deviant Art website) rather than the quicksand fetishists (such as A-020, an artist who “draws women trapped in quicksand for the titillation of those with a predilection for such imagery”) as well as interviewing various academics about the fetishistic side of the practice. However, A-020 admitted he was also a quicksand fetishist. When asked about the origins of his fetish, which he claimed were integrated with other types of fetish behaviour: “I think it could be a distant cousin of fetishes like vore and bondage with a combination of muddy and stuck elements. Those similarities may be why I find it interesting mixed with an attractive female”.

Gravning wanted to know whether witnessing human beings stuck in quicksand in cartoons over and over as a child possibly lead to this unusual fetish. She asked Dr. Catherine Salmon, an evolutionary psychologist, who wrote the book Warrior Lovers: Erotic Fiction, Evolution and Female Sexuality:

“It could be something like that. Whether it’s quicksand or tar pits, there are things like that in children’s cartoons. It could be something as simple as that. Part of it is the damsel in distress kind of image. Watching ‘Wonder Woman’ caught in that kind of circumstance when people are younger—[it’s] an image that’s eroticized, a very sexually drawn, very feminine image. And they might enjoy watching that sort of thing or the struggle, as she’s trying to get out of whatever that circumstance is. There are a lot of unusual circumstances in cartoons and fantasy and you may get aroused while you’re watching it and then carry some of that too”.

Gravning also interviewed Dr. Elizabeth Larson, the Director of the Seattle Institute for Sex Therapy, Education and Research. Like me, Dr. Larson sees the development of such fetishes as most likely the consequence of associative pairing early in childhood or adolescence. More specifically she noted:

“These associations that come to be associated with an aroused state and are ‘accidents of learning’. These accidents of learning are most potent in the early sexual learning history, although it’s not impossible later. They don’t have to be exactly like the fantasy that comes. It just has to resemble it…[Quicksand fetishists] probably fantasized and got into the feeling that goes with that, not just watching. It could [also] be identifying with it. The kid imagining himself stuck in quicksand in the victim’s place, for example, could be part of its erotic appeal. You could either be observing it or experiencing it. You could be doing both at the same time in a fantasy. Some evidence certainly suggests that sexual patterns are already there, for sure in males, by the age of eight [years of age]. They may or may not have begun masturbating to fantasies until adolescence but something is going on internally at a very young age”.

Gravning also spoke to the US computational neuroscientist Dr. Ogi Ogas who was quoted as saying:

“While uncommon, the notion of being smothered or trapped is universal in the sense that it exists to greater and lesser degrees ‘all over’ [the world]. It’s not just one or two people that have it. It is found in a lot of places. Clearly our normal brain design is not that far removed from [wanting to be] enveloped. It’s probably something to do with our tactile system, our touch system of the brain, that’s quite naturally wired to our sexual arousal system. The tactile system is also interconnected with sensations like being smothered and being interred, being doused with water. Probably, somehow – and I’m speculating here – that’s what got crossed up for whatever reasons…A quirk in the brain, essentially…As we’re learning more about the genetics of brain construction, we’re coming to understand the genetic expression that leads to different neural wiring is highly variable and dependent on so many things [that] could happen in the womb, things that happen in early life, different environmental things. There’s just myriad, myriad factors that can cause unusual neural wiring to arise. Following this logic, some boy who just happens to have the notion of being smothered or trapped somehow interconnected to his arousal system becomes aroused when he sees an attractive woman struggling in quicksand, and that image burns into his mind”.

I have no idea how common quicksand fetishes are (but I would suspect it’s a very niche fetish), and I doubt whether the fetish is the only type of fetishistic behaviour among such people as there is so much crossover with many other different niche fetishes (stuck fetishism, buried fetishism, etc.). As with many other extreme sexual behaviours I have examined, I can’t see this becoming an area of serious academic study any time soon, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting topic.